Netflix for Android update pokes your Facebook friends

Netflix has updated its Android app - bringing in Facebook fun for its new UK audience.

Version 1.7 of the app has landed in the Android market and brings Facebook integration (a luxury already afforded to Canadians and Latin Americans) so as you can see what movies and TV shows your pals are streaming. You can also fill up your Facebook pals' inboxes with video recommendations.

The Facebook feature is one that our US cousins don't get access to - thanks to a two-decade old law, movie rental providers in the States are prohibited from disclosing consumers' video rental information without written consent.

It's a law that Netflix is trying to change. In January, it urged a panel of senators to support legislation that would allow its users to share information on Facebook about what they are watching on the streaming platform.

Netflix argued it was unclear whether consumers can give ongoing consent to have information about the movies and TV shows they instantly watch shared with their social contacts.

"The friction that this ambiguity creates places a drag on social video innovation that is not present in any other medium, including music, books and even news articles," said the company's general counsel David Hyman.

Luckily no such silly law exists here in Blighty, so feel free to annoy the hell out of your Facebook friends by keeping them updated everytime you watch a new episode of Inspector Morse.